FAVz031 Popular European Cinema: Genres and Stars

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2020
Extent and Intensity
0/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
Ginette Vincendeau (lecturer)
Mgr. Martin Kos, Ph.D. (assistant)
Mgr. Ondřej Pavlík, Ph.D. (assistant)
Mgr. Kateřina Šardická (assistant)
Mgr. Radomír D. Kokeš, Ph.D. (alternate examiner)
Mgr. Michal Večeřa, Ph.D. (alternate examiner)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Radomír D. Kokeš, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 71 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Syllabus
  • 1. Popular European genre cinema: ‘exportable’ and ‘inexportable’ comedy
  • 2. The European Heritage cinema: biopics, history, commodities
  • 3. Film noir: Europe and America
  • 4. Is there a European star system?
  • 5. Brigitte Bardot: Europe’s only global mass-media celebrity
  • 6. Juliette Binoche: the ultimate European art cinema star
  • This series of six sessions reflects on the issue of genres and stars in (Western) European cinema, taking French cinema as its core case study. While the history of European cinema has traditionally been dominated by the figure of the auteur, genre and stardom have been seen as pertaining principally to Hollywood. Yet the national film industries of Europe manifestly include popular genres and stars, even though many fail to transcend national borders.
  • The sessions will focus on issues of definition and methodology (can we study popular European genres and stardom using Anglo-American models? What constitutes ‘the popular’ in the context of European cinema?), history (what genres and stars can legitimately be claimed as such?), language, generic codes and national identity (entailing questions of the ‘exportable’ and the ‘inexportable’), narrative and stylistic specificity (including in relation to Hollywood), critical practice and cinephilia (why are critics and historians so reluctant to consider European genres and stars? Genres and stars as evidence of a ‘popular cinephilia’).
  • Lectures on genre will concentrate on comedy, heritage cinema and noir crime film – three ‘genres’ that can be found across virtually all national cinemas and which afford trans-national comparisons. Lectures on stardom will begin with a session on whether there is such a thing as a ‘European star-system’ and move on to two case studies at the opposite ends of the cinematic and cultural spectrum: a session on Brigitte Bardot as ‘Europe’s first – and only? – mass-media celebrity’ and one on Juliette Binoche as ‘the ultimate European art cinema star’. This last session will bring together issues running through the whole course, as in this case art/auteur cinema is considered as a ‘genre’.
  • Ginette Vincendeau is Professor of Film Studies at King’s College, London. She has written widely on popular French and European cinema and is a regular contributor to Sight and Sound. She is the author of Pépé le Moko (BFI, 1998); Stars and Stardom in French Cinema (Continuum, 2000); Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris (BFI, 2003), and La Haine (I.B. Tauris, 2005). Her collection of essays, Popular French Cinema, From the Classical to the Trans-national will be published by I.B. Tauris in 2012. She is currently completing a book on Brigitte Bardot, French Star, International Icon (BFI/Palgrave) and Cinema Under the Mediterranean Sun: Provence, Marseille and the Côte d’Azur on Film (I.B. Tauris).
  • Ginette Vincendeau is also the editor of The Encyclopedia of European Cinema (BFI/Cassell, 1995) and of Film, Literature, Heritage (BFI, 2001) and co-editor, with Susan Hayward, of French Film: Texts and Contexts (Routledge, 1990 and 2000), with Alastair Phillips, of Journeys of Desire, European Actors in Hollywood (BFI, 2006) and with Peter Graham of The New Wave: Critical Landmarks (BFI, 2009). She has recently completed editing The Blackwell Companion to Jean Renoir (with Alastair Phillips).
Literature
    required literature
  • BAZGAN, Nicoleta. From Bardot to Binoche: the Pygmalion myth and artistic collaboration in French cinema. Contemporary French Civilization. 2011, 36/3, p. 201-218. ISSN 0147-9156. info
  • ELEFTHERIOTIS, Dimitris. The Popular and the European in Film Studies. In DYER, Richard and Ginette VINCENDEAU. Popular cinemas of Europe :studies of texts, contexts and frameworks. New York: Continuum, 2001, p. 68-91, 232 pp. ISBN 0-8264-5593-X. info
  • ESPOSITO, Maria. Jean de Florette: patrimoine, the rural idyll and the 1980s. In MAZDON, Lucy. France on film: reflections on popular French cinema. London: Wallflower Press, 2011, p. 11-26. info
  • HEDLING, Olof. Possibilities of stardom in European cinema culture. In SOILA, Tytti. Stardom in popular European cinema. Herts: John Libbey, 2009, p. 254-264, 294 pp. info
  • MOINE, Raphaëlle. Generic Hybridity, National Culture, and Globalised Cinema. In WALDRON, Darren and Isabelle VANDERS. France at the Flicks, Trends in Contemporary French Popular Cinema. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, p. 36-50. ISBN 978-1-84718-301-9. info
  • ROLLET, Brigitte. Transatlantic Exchanges and Influences: Décalage horaire (Jet Lag), Gender and the Romantic Comedy à la française. In ABBOTT, Stacey and Deborah JERMYN. Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008, p. 92-104, 248 pp. ISBN 978-1-84511-771-9. info
  • SCHWARTZ, Vanessa. And France Created Bardot. In SCHWARTZ, Vanessa. It's So French!: Hollywood, Paris, and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 102-157, 272 pp. ISBN 978-0-226-74243-4. info
  • VINCENDEAU, Ginette. The French Star System. In VINCENDEAU, Ginette. Stars and Stardom in French Cinema. London: Continuum, 2000, p. 1-41, 275 pp. ISBN 0-8264-4730-9. info
  • VINCENDEAU, Ginette. French Film Noir. In SPICER, Andrew. European Film Noir. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007, p. 23-54, 279 pp. info
Teaching methods
lecture series
Assessment methods
written test, six questions (three from lectures, three from texts)
Language of instruction
English
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
The course is taught: in blocks.
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2012.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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